Premier League’s Brit club
LONDON: Sam Allardyce and Alan Pardew are favourites to take over the managerial vacancies at Everton and West Bromwich Albion, appointments that would reinforce the cautious culture that exists in the Premier League.
Allardyce, the 63-year-old former England boss, has managed six clubs in the league, gaining a reputation as “Fireman Sam” who arrives in times of crisis and always keeps his teams up.
Pardew also has a fine track record of avoiding the drop and West Brom would be his fifth Premier League club, putting the 56-year-old joint second on the list behind Allardyce.
If confirmed, the appointments mean that eight of the past 15 jobs will have gone to British managers over 50, a surprising statistic given that Allardyce, who will have taken two of these positions, last month bemoaned a tendency for British coaches to be treated as “second class” and get overlooked.
“The Premier League is a foreign league in England,” he said. “When you look across the owners, the managers and players, that is exactly what it is now.”
Yet the imminent appointments suggest the traditional networks influencing English football’s job market remain strong.
Pardew has been recommended by West Brom’s technical director Nicky Hammond, with whom he played at Crystal Palace.
Allardyce has reportedly been championed by Steve Walsh, Everton’s director of football who worked alongside Craig Shakespeare, Allardyce’s assistant at England, at Leicester. Shakespeare is tipped to fill a similar role at Everton.
The recycling of a small number of managers around Premier League jobs is an ongoing trend.
Both Allardyce (2016-17) and Pardew (2015-16) formerly managed Palace, as did 59-yearold Tony Pulis, who Pardew would succeed at Albion. One of Pulis’s predecessors at West Brom was Roy Hodgson, who has completed the circle by taking over at Palace this season aged 70.
Bournemouth’s Eddie Howe is the only one of the seven British managers in the Premier League under 40. With only two under 50, the opportunities to dislodge the experienced elite are limited.
The attraction of managers with proven Premier League credentials is clear, particularly given the huge cost of relegation, which probably governs Everton’s thinking in contacting Allardyce after five defeats in seven games under caretaker boss David Unsworth. — Reuters
You might only find those kind of stats in the Azerbaijan league.
This is serious cause for concern, especially for a product that compares itself to the best in the business as far as revenue goes.
Yes, the numbers back the PSL as possibly the best in Africa when you count the rands and cents, but my goodness the football so far this season has been awful to say the least. I have twice fallen asleep on my couch watching one of those Sunday afternoon matches, and trust me I don’t think it had anything to do with stuffing my face with my wife’s seven colours lunch dish shortly after church.
One of those games was the Telkom Knockout semi-final clash between Polokwane City and